i suppose i love you
by DrinkingAlcoholicRainbows
Summary: It's a damned disease, is what it is. So he keeps his mouth shut, holds on to the handle of his dustpan tight enough that his knuckles are going white, and hopes that he isn't just imagining the heat inside the closet. :: Kageyama is forced to deal with some Serious Emotions when he's trapped in a closet with Hinata.


**A/N: This has been sitting in my drafts for a long time, so I'm glad I finished it. Have some pre-slash Kagehinas with a side of overused cliche. Title comes from _do you love me_ from the cool musical _Fiddler On The Roof_ , which contains some of my favorite lyrics about love ever: _and_ _i suppose i love you too / it doesn't change a thing / but after twenty-five years / it's nice to know_. Anyway, please enjoy!**

* * *

"So," Hinata says, nervously laughing. "Funny I'd see you here. I didn't assume you were the cleaning type." He glances at the brooms off to his side, unwilling to admit that he just didn't want to look at his team mate.

It was pretty obvious, even for an emotionally-stunted person like Kageyama, who didn't associate with people much. Or at all.

"I'm not," he starts, and ends.

Hinata bites his lip. Shuffles around. Attempts to open the door. Fails at it, like he fails at everything. He whimpers a bit, and Kageyama doesn't want to know what pathetic melodrama is going through his head at the moment, but he's pretty sure he can guess.

"I don't understand what the problem is," he says, and Hinata bangs on the door even more furiously than before. Kageyama's a bit impressed. "They'll probably realize they locked us in sooner or later."

"They won't," Hinata says. He turns, looks at Kageyama with teary eyes, and repeats, "They won't. We're locked here forever."

And there's something about his face that makes Kageyama want to wipe those tears away, but all he does is smack the idiot with a dustpan and say, "Idiot." Which, of course, just makes Hinata yelp really loudly and accomplish nothing except for making Kageyama twitch his lips a bit.

Hinata notices this. "You're smiling," he says, "which means I'm doomed."

"We," Kageyama corrects, ignoring the first part of the sentence. "I'm the poor guy that has to deal with you in the meantime."

Hinata pouted and said, "Meanie," which just caused Kageyama's smile to spread even wider.

Which is becoming a problem.

See, it didn't use to be a problem back when he thought Hinata was just a hopeless midget with no chance at life. Now, he thinks Hinata's a _cute_ hopeless midget with no chance at life, and he can't exactly explain why without saying, "My heart just goes _vavoom_ when he looks at me."

It's a damned _disease_ , is what it is. So he keeps his mouth shut, holds on to the handle of his dustpan tight enough that his knuckles are going white, and hopes that he isn't just imagining the heat inside the closet.

Oh, it can barely even be called a closet, really. It's more like its own room; just with cleaning supplies randomly strewn everywhere. It's a miracle if they can find a mop that's actually standing up straight, but at the very least, it's big. Which is all the better for their situation, because if they were locked in a really small closet with little to no space between him and Hinata, Kageyama probably couldn't resist leaning down and—

The point is that he's never really appreciated the concept of space until this moment. That's all that should be said on the matter.

"Hinata," he says, and out of the corner of his eye he sees the other boy flinch and turn pale as he faced him.

Which, for the record, did not break his heart. Sure, it caused a very deep and sudden plunge in his stomach, but it did _not_ break his heart.

His heart, however, did leap into his throat when recognition slipped into Hinata's eyes and he gave Kageyama a shaky grin as he said a breathless, "Oh, it's you."

Kageyama wanted to smush his cheeks together and hug him fiercely.

Instead, he says, "Who else would it be, dumbass."

Hinata instantly reverts back to being his irritating self with a stomp on the floor and a face as red and round as a tomato. "Don't act so high and mighty! I-I was just startled, that's all!" He stutters out, hands all over the place.

He looks so adorable that Kageyama wants to crush him. He stares, probably for a bit longer than he intended, and Hinata whimpers.

"Oh god," he groans. "We've been stuck here for _hours_."

Kageyama snorts, which just makes Hinata glare at him. Not that he looked intimidating or anything, but it's the thought that counts. "Actually," Kageyama says, "it's only been around ten minutes. You'd know that if you looked at your watch, dumbass."

There is a brief pause.

"Kageyama," Hinata blankly says. "I don't have a watch. Neither do you."

Kageyama starts to glare at nothing in particular.

He can feel Hinata's eyes on him for a moment, and then he feels his face go hot. In a few seconds, his fingers will probably start twitching. His heartbeat will probably speed up. He might feel a little dizzy. If he's not careful, he might actually give into the urge to _talk_ to the dumb idiot.

If this really is what dumb Internet search said it was, Kageyama was doomed.

Feelings were scary.

The only thing scarier than that was tossing and looking back to find an empty space where Hinata should've been.

Being without Hinata, Kageyama had long decided, would be the scariest thing of all.

"Oy," he says, "stop staring at me, idiot."

Actually, Hinata wasn't staring at him. He was kneeling by the small patch of light that the creak through the doors let through, his palms together and his head bent down in prayer. He was so desperate he started _praying_ for the gods to let them out, the dumb idiot, like they could be bothered to answer such a stupid prayer like _getting out of the closet_. Kageyama was looking at him, and the second that Hinata happened to glance back, he was overcome with such a fierce emotion that he immediately got angry as a reflex.

Hinata lets out a small _eep_ in alarm and Kageyama instinctively growls. This only serves to make the other boy shriek and start praying faster.

He looks adorable. Kageyama feels his face go hot.

"OPEN UP THE FUCKING CLOSET," Kageyama shouts, banging on the doors with more force than necessary. He wouldn't be surprised if he broke them. He would be glad if he did. The situation was getting dangerous. He couldn't stay here any longer. He could die. And if he died, who would toss to Hinata?

 _Nobody that deserves to_ , he thinks, and he lands a blow so hard his knuckles start bleeding.

"Kageyama!" Hinata shouts, and pulls him down to the ground. He hits the ground hard, and it hurts worse than his fist, and he almost laughs with the irony of it.

He doesn't. Hinata is frowning at him, bordering on a pout, so Kageyama scowls back as he watches the other boy sit down beside him.

"You're an idiot," Hinata says, but he's gently using the edges of his shirt to wipe away the blood. He's calm, Kageyama notices, which is weird because he was panicking just a few moments ago. He looks like he's done this before, but that's not as weird. He's probably had to take care of himself. He's probably had to take care of his sister. And now, he's taking care of Kageyama.

He feels his face go hot again, but his heart isn't so extreme. It's just soft warmth spreading all over from his heart and to his head and to his fingertips.

Kageyama wretches his hand abruptly from Hinata. His fingers were starting to twitch, and his heart already felt funny. This thing was a disease. He couldn't let it spread. He couldn't let people _know_ , much less the boy sitting right next to him.

"What's the big idea, Bakageyama?" says Hinata, offended. "I was helping you out! Didn't your parents teach you to say thank you?"

"You should be thanking _me_ ," Kageyama says back. "I am very sick. I am trying to save you. Don't touch me."

"I'll touch you however I'll like!" Hinata glares at him, furrowing his eyebrows and grabbing his hand for effect. Kageyama instantly feels his heart skip a beat, which means that the symptoms are getting stronger. "You don't feel sick, and you're not sick, and I should know because I get sick all the time! Now let me take care of you!"

And he leans down to press his lips on Kageyama's hand.

He blinks once, in shock, and promptly feels his soul leave his body.

"What," he manages to breathe out, "the fuck did you just do, Hinata."

Hinata blushes, apparently forgetting all his past bravado. Which is both good _and_ bad: it's good because Kageyama is assured that he isn't the only one affected by the — and it was _not_ a kiss, okay, if anything it was a _fatal blow_ — and it's bad because Kageyama is now sure that he has infected Hinata with his disease. God knows that if _he_ can't control himself properly while he's sick, Hinata doesn't have any hope of actually _functoning_ through it.

"Don't take it the wrong way!" he shrieks, flustered and his hands making weird gestures and refusing to even _look_ at Kageyama. "It was how my mom treated me and Natsu! She said it makes everything feel better!"

"Your mother lied," Kageyama says blankly. "I feel like I was shot through the heart."

The other boy brightens up at that, his grin wide. With his blush still left over, he looks like sunshine. "That's good! Maybe you can grow another heart and we'll just hope it makes you nicer!"

Normally, Kageyama would whack him on the head and they'd get into a heated argument that will probably result in even bloodier knuckles and more than a few small bruises. Or maybe he'd send a deadly glare at Hinata's way and he'd watch the other boy's grin freeze in fright and quickly huddle far away. He could also easily just stand up and seclude himself in a dark corner of the room, ignoring Hinata altogether.

But Kageyama takes one look at Hinata's bright eyes and he feels his heartbeat steady itself, the way it does every time he walks into a volleyball court.

He thinks, _This sickness must be getting worse._

He thinks, _This doesn't feel worse._

He thinks, _This is okay._

Kageyama lets his body relax as he gives out a soft sigh. Hinata isn't holding on to his hand anymore, but they're still sitting so close that their shoulders would be touching if he moved just a few inches more. "Hey," he says, "we've been stuck here a little longer than I thought."

Hinata snickers. He says, "Didn't think you could use your brain when you're not in the court," and he tilts his head in confusion when Kageyama doesn't bristle in anger.

Instead, the corner of his lips twitch up. He says, "Come here, I'm tired," and when the other boy scoots over he rests his head on top of Hinata's. He can feel Hinata's confusion — he doesn't know how to give a poker face, if he even knows what that is — and he tenses up at the action. He doesn't move away though, so Kageyama feels comfortable in closing his eyes and forgetting about everything else but the two of them.

Apparently Hinata thinks he's already drifted off, so he hears it crystal clear when the other boy nervously laughs to himself.

"What the hell," Hinata murmurs. "I think I'm getting sick."

Kageyama — well, he doesn't _smile_ , not exactly. He doesn't think he has the emotional capacity to even give a name to what he's feeling, much less let it show or really delve into it, and he probably won't until a _very_ long while. Maybe sometime. Not now. Not when he's just infected Hinata with it, not when he's just felt his disease running wilder and deeper, not when he's just accepted his life-threatening sickness with all the ease of tossing a ball.

So he doesn't smile, no. He just moves his hand a bit so their pinky fingers are touching, listens to Hinata inhale sharply as he does so, and he thinks, _It looks like it's not just me anymore_.

* * *

They get out of the closet when Sugawara finds them, accept half-hearted apologies from both Tanaka and Nishinoya along with a promise of steamed buns the next afternoon, and they walk home without any fuss.

Hinata gets a ball to the head at the next practice, courtesy of Daichi, who tells him off for being distracted. He runs off to Tsukishima and Yamaguchi where they're both warming up, both of whom snort at him but don't tell him to leave either. Kageyama is watching them from the corner of his eye, and he's in earshot when Yamaguchi asks, "You usually bother Kageyama, so what are you doing here?"

"I think I like him," Hinata blurts out, and Kageyama chokes so bad on his water that he ends up collapsing on the floor.


End file.
